Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần 27 Thường Niên

Suy Niệm Tin Mừng Thứ Năm Tuần  27 Thường Niên
            Qua bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa đã nhấn mạnh cho chúng ta thấy sức mạnh của lời cầu nguyện và sự cần thiết trong việc phải kiên trì trong sự cầu nguyện. Khi chúng ta cảm thấy rằng Thiên Chúa không nghe hoặc không đáp lại những lời cầu xin của chúng tai, có lẽ chúng ta phải nhớ rằng cách của Thiên Chúa làm việc không phải là cách làm việc của con người chúng ta và có lẽ Thiên Chúa đã có kế hoạch khác cho chúng ta, và có khi  kế hoạch đó còn tốt hơn là những gì chúng ta đã xin.
            Khi Chúa dạy các môn đệ cầu nguyện, Ngài cũng nhắc nhở chúng ta qua Tin Mừng là hãy nhớ cầu nguyện luôn. Chính vì trong khi cầu nguyện, chúng ta đã mở lòng với Thiên Chúa. Chính vì trong lời cầu nguyện mà chúng ta đã xác tín được sự tin tưởng của chúng ta ở nơi Thiên Chúa. Và chính vì trong lời cầu nguyện mà chúng ta xác tín được sự chân thành và thẳng thắn của chúng ta với Thiên Chúa.
 
Reflection:
Today's Gospel strongly emphasizes the power of prayer and the need to be persistent in prayer. When we feel that God is not listening or answering our prayers, perhaps we must remember that God's way is not man's way and perhaps the Lord has other plans for us.  As the Lord taught his disciples to pray, he also reminds us through the Gospel to remember to pray. It is in prayer that we open ourselves to him. It is in prayer that we confirm our trust in him. It is in prayer that we confirm our sincerity and frankness with him.
 
Thursday of the Twenty-Seventh Week in Ordinary Time
Jesus said to his disciples: “Suppose one of you has a friend to whom he goes at midnight and says, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey and I have nothing to offer him…’” Luke 11:5–6
Unless your friend were truly a very close friend, you may hesitate in waking them and their family at midnight to ask to borrow some food. And even if it were a very close friend, you would probably hesitate for fear of disturbing them. But in this parable, the “friend” is God. Jesus just finished giving His disciples the “Our Father” prayer, and now He adds this parable as a way of expressing the great confidence and determination with which we must pray to the Father. The parable concludes by stating that even if the person in bed does not get up to meet the request, they will do so “because of his persistence.” And though God always is attentive to our prayer, our persistence is an essential quality we must have.
When we pray to God with persistence, never doubting the goodness and generosity of God, God will pour forth upon us everything that is good. Of course, if our prayer is for something that is selfish or not in accord with the will of God, then all the begging in the world will not be effective. But when we pray as the “Our Father” prayer teaches us, then we can be certain that our fidelity to that prayer, prayed with the utmost trust and persistence, will affect the good gifts of the will of God in our lives.
One of the seven petitions of the “Our Father” prayer is “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” This is a truly beautiful petition that requires not only ongoing persistence but also detachment from our preference in life. To pray that “God’s” will be done and that “His” Kingdom come is a way of also saying that you surrender all of your preferences to God. You come to God acknowledging that your will may not be God’s will. Thus, this petition expresses detachment in a powerful way.
Reflect, today, upon the importance of praying with the utmost fervor and persistence to God. Reflect, also, upon the importance of doing so with detachment. What does God want of you? What is His holy will for your life? Seek that will and that will alone with all your heart and you will discover that His will truly will come to be in your life.
My perfect Lord, Your will and Your will alone is what I want and seek. I seek it with all the powers of my soul. Help me to grow in confidence in You and Your goodness. May I trust in You and believe with all my heart that You truly will bring forth Your holy will in my life if I only persist in prayer and trust. Jesus, I trust in You.
 
Thursday 27th Ordinary Time 2-24
Opening Prayer: Lord God, pour out your Spirit and renew the face of the earth! Enlighten my mind to know your holy will. Inflame my heart to love you without reserve. Strengthen my will to seek you in all things.
Encountering the Word of God
1. Persistence in Prayer: In the Gospel, Jesus has just taught his disciples how to pray and what to ask for in prayer to the Father. Now, Jesus teaches his disciples by means of a parable to persist in prayer. In the parable, a man goes to his friend’s house at midnight to ask for bread so that he may feed another friend who came to his home unexpectedly. At first, the friend refuses to get up and give the man what he needs. However, Jesus points out that if the man persists in his request, his friend will get up and give him the bread he needs for his other friend. He does so, not because of their friendship, but because of his friend’s persistence. This invites us to think about God the Father, who hears our requests in prayer. Unlike the friend who is asleep and in bed, God is not asleep nor bothered by our prayer. God will give us the good things we ask for because we are his children. Knowing this, then, that God is not like a bothered friend, but is a benevolent Father, should motivate us all the more to persist in our prayer to him.
2. Ask, Seek, Knock: After the parable about persistence in prayer, Jesus gives three imperatives. He first tells us to ask. If we ask for good things from the Father, we will receive them. He then tells us to seek. If we seek good things from the Father, we will find them. Finally, he tells us to knock at the door. If we knock at the door of heaven, then the door will be opened to us. The humble ask, seek, and knock. The prideful refuse to ask because they are self-sufficient. The prideful refuse to seek because they are content with what they have accomplished and gained. The prideful refuse to knock because they think that others must come to them. Jesus teaches us that when we ask for the physical and spiritual nourishment we need, his Father will not give us evil things – symbolized by the snake and scorpion – but give us the supreme good, i.e., the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very Love between the Father and the Son. 
3. You Have Received the Spirit: In his Letter to the Galatians, Paul talks about receiving the Holy Spirit. He calls the Galatians “fools.” This is because they have begun to believe the message of the Judaizers (Galatians 1:6). Paul reminds the Galatians that they did not receive the Holy Spirit by following the ceremonial laws and social norms of Moses but by believing in Jesus Christ. The Galatians are fools to think that, after having received the New Law and the grace of the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ, they need to add the works of the Old Law – circumcision and other ceremonial laws – to complete their Christian initiation. “Before the coming of Christ, the rite of circumcision was the doorway into God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 17:9-14) and the sacrament of initiation into the family of Israel (Leviticus 12:3). The Crucifixion of Jesus Christ, however, marks a turning point in covenant history where circumcision is now set aside, along with the entire body of liturgical and ceremonial legislation promulgated by Moses. Through his Cross, Christ has redeemed us from the curses of the Old Covenant (Galatians 3:13) and unleashed the divine blessings of the New Covenant in a powerful way, inaugurating a ‘new creation’ (Galatians 6:15) and a renewed ‘Israel’ (Galatians 6:16)” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible: New Testament, 330).
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, you have redeemed me and made me a new creation. Move me to ask for what I most need from the Father. Encourage me to persevere as I seek what I most desire. Help me overcome any obstacles and knock at the door that leads to eternal life.
 
Thursday 27th Ordinary Time
Opening Prayer: I come to you today, Lord, believing firmly that you care about me and are interested in my life. I take comfort in the words from today’s first reading: “the Lord listened attentively.” I know you are listening to me, right now. You are loving me and smiling upon me, because, as you remind me in today’s first reading, I am “yours, your own special possession.” Teach me, Lord, to hear your voice and follow wherever you lead.
Encountering Christ:
            Expectations: What do I expect from God? Jesus makes it abundantly clear that we should expect from God much more than we can possibly imagine: “How much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?” A merely human father knows how to give good gifts to his children. Our heavenly Father is infinitely more loving, attentive, wise, and powerful. He is infinitely more committed to us, to our welfare. Even the best of human fathers is only finite in his capacity to love and provide. God is all-loving, all-powerful, all-present. What a difference it would make if we believed with all our heart and soul in this truth that Jesus has revealed so energetically! When we look at the lives of the saints, we see an unbridled faith in God’s infinite goodness and commitment to us. That faith frees them from the shackles of earthly fears and insecurities. It unleashes the gifts of the Holy Spirit so that they experience more and more fully the divine goodness they believe in and spread that goodness around them. We all believe in this infinite goodness and loving interest of God. But we can believe in it more fully, more radically. Faith, like all Christian virtues, is a gift and a task. We have received the gift; now we need to exercise it more consciously, intentionally, and regularly so that it can grow and bear the fruit God wants it to. 
            Ask, Seek, Knock: Whenever the Jewish rabbis repeated one concept three times with three different words, it was a sign of extreme emphasis. That is what Jesus did in this case. He used two parables–the sleeping friend and the fish/egg vs. snake/scorpion–to illustrate how we must entrust ourselves and our needs to God, and so enter a true childlike relationship with him. And then he exhorted us to be very demanding with God by asking, seeking, knocking. Jesus knows that our hearts burn with deep and passionate desires–for meaning, for happiness, for peace, for wisdom, for counsel, for love, for blessings–our hearts are furnaces of desires! And they are thus because God has made them thus. Ours is not a religion that promises peace only by extinguishing desires. On the contrary, Jesus invites us to feed our good desires by expressing them insistently to the One who can fulfill them. Life itself, with all the yearnings it gives us, is God at work within us. Every good desire we experience is like a promise from the Lord—he wouldn’t give us hearts that yearn so much if he wasn’t able to satisfy beyond all expectations the yearnings we experience. As the Catechism puts it (1718): “This desire [for happiness] is of divine origin: God has placed it in the human heart in order to draw man to the One who alone can fulfill it.”
            The Cynical Seduction: We have all prayed to God for so many things. We have asked him for so many graces and favors; we have sought and knocked so often, just like the importunate friend in the parable. But it seems that more often than not our petitions are ignored. Doesn’t it? Be honest. So many problems, so much suffering, so many difficulties and failures, sins and sorrows—if God really is the Good Father who wants to give us more than we even know how to ask for, why is life such an unending flow of tears and tribulations? If only we remember one thing, we will never get stuck in cynicism and discouragement. If only we remember what Jesus told Pilate just hours before he sacrificed his own life to redeem us from sin, we will learn to obey St. Paul’s bold injunction to the Philippians: “Rejoice in the Lord always! I shall say it again: Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4). Jesus told Pilate, “My Kingdom is not of this world” (John 18:36). The fulfillment he yearns to give us is much deeper than we realize, although he sometimes allows us to glimpse it even in earthly terms, as he did when answering the prayers of all Christendom in 1571 at the Battle of Lepanto (commemorated by today’s memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary). And so, when he doesn’t answer our askings, seekings, and knockings the way we expected, we can be sure that it’s only because what he has in mind is better than what we had in mind. And with that assurance, our hearts will never be seduced by the siren calls of soul-squelching cynicism.
Conversing with Christ: I will never give up on you, Lord. Just as I know you will never give up on me. I know that for you “one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years is like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). I renew my commitment to follow and obey you every single day of my life, no matter what. I will never stop asking, seeking, and knocking for the fulfillment of the longings you have placed with me. And I will never stop renewing my faith in your infinite goodness and in your personal commitment to my holiness and everlasting happiness. Thank you, my Lord! May your name be ever blessed!
Resolution: Lord, today by your grace I will compose my own “act of faith,” my very own prayer, written in my own words, that I will pray every day for the next week in order to exercise and thereby increase my faith in your omnipotent goodness.